Ok, so I've been playing around with OHKO's for a while now, and my biggest issue is that the best potential abuser has better things to do. Sheer Cold Kyogre is not a bad set, but it just isn't as good as regular Scarfogre. The opportunity cost of giving up Choice Scarf + Water Spout coming off of a massive 438 Spa just isn't worth a 30% chance to kill the handful of things that could switch into a water spout. While Sheer Cold does a fairly good job of killing Kyogre's counters, it makes Kyogre a lot less threatening to begin with as random offensive pokemon can usually beat it. On the other hand, I have tested Guillotine Gliscor as an anti-stall pokemon and it works wonders. Taunt lets it shut down Lugia, Ferrothorn, Blissey, Chansey, Skarmory, most Giratinas, Forretress, and basically any defensive pokemon in the metagame. This usually forces a switch, which gives Gliscor a free chance to fire off a OHKO or toxic something, depending on the threat and the situation. The only two stall pokemon I can think of that don't fear this strategy are Skarmory and Forretress, and both can do nothing to hurt Gliscor back (although Forretress can still spin).

Ok, so I've been playing around with OHKO's for a while now, and my biggest issue is that the best potential abuser has better things to do. Sheer Cold Kyogre is not a bad set, but it just isn't as good as regular Scarfogre. The opportunity cost of giving up Choice Scarf + Water Spout coming off of a massive 438 Spa just isn't worth a 30% chance to kill the handful of things that could switch into a water spout. While Sheer Cold does a fairly good job of killing Kyogre's counters, it makes Kyogre a lot less threatening to begin with as random offensive pokemon can usually beat it. On the other hand, I have tested Guillotine Gliscor as an anti-stall pokemon and it works wonders. Taunt lets it shut down Lugia, Ferrothorn, Blissey, Chansey, Skarmory, most Giratinas, Forretress, and basically any defensive pokemon in the metagame. This usually forces a switch, which gives Gliscor a free chance to fire off a OHKO or toxic something, depending on the threat and the situation. The only two stall pokemon I can think of that don't fear this strategy are Skarmory and Forretress, and both can do nothing to hurt Gliscor back (although Forretress can still spin).

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The ability to have NO safe switch ins, as opposed to being counterable by what every somewhat decent player brings to check you, isn't worth consideration?

It seems that this at least somewhat offsets the chance of a OHKO actually hitting, as they are impossible to be prepared for conventionally by many playstyles. If sheer cold kyogre was dead weight against offense I would think your position made more sense, but in fact with a bulky spread I would argue it's at least as useful as the scarf ogre you mention. Scarf ogre is prone to being weakened, and allowing almost anything to set up on its no longer collosal water spouts, and can allow things like palkia and latias to take huge shots at your team, no mater your prediction. It is a great revenge killer, but it's power is dependent on how well you can remove hazards, a difficult thing to do.

Sleep talk sheer cold kyogre can be a check to darkrai, ho-oh, mewtwo if you run a physically defensive spread, calm mind arceus forms, rock polish groudon if you run a physically defensive spread, reshiarm and even kyu-w if you run a SpD spread and keep hazards to a minimum. It can threaten these pokemon, too, without even needing to rely on Sheer Cold's admittedly terrible accuracy, by using its still powerful and very threatening Scald.

Something I noticed from time to time in my battles was that occasionally my opponents would lead with something, whilst I lead with Kyogre. If what they had out wouldn't do too much to it and wasn't a suicide lead, then they would switch to a counter. Upon seeing Sheer Cold miss (if it missed, mind you) they would immediately switch into something expendable that can damage Kyogre a bit if they lacked something with Sturdy. If my Kyogre had a moveset for something other than testing how often the move hit, then it could easily take advantage of that. Palkia is suddenly a lot less threatening when you've boosted a bit because they were afraid Sheer Cold's 1/3 chance of hitting it would take down something before they got an attack off. What if you were using a Choice Scarf? Unless they had a scarf, then they could fall without even hitting Kyogre. Even if they did, then there's still a chance that Sheer Cold would hit without Kyogre falling to a counter. Alternatively, I could just outright kill the OHKO fodder with a different attack. After all, why should I waste PP on something that was simply brought in as death fodder despite potentially being at 100% HP? Switching back to the counter anyway as a feint still leads the risk of using an OHKO move anyway and KOing the counter. This is disregarding the presence of hazards, by the way.

There's also the matter of boosting sweepers. Unless they have a sub up (which would require them putting up themselves to make it worthwhile) then they'll just fall to the OHKO move. Even then, what if the sweeper is slower for whatever reason? There's a chance that it'll fall because it couldn't create another substitute in time. There's also the matter of restricting it to three moves instead of four because it has to watch out for the OHKO move. Two moves if it's a boosting sweeper. While some Pokemon can pull this off, it also limits their capabilities. With a Kyogre, does it use BoltBeam, or does it pass up some coverage for a rain-boosted attack? Does it pass up a move for Rest? If so, what will you do so those three turns aren't free turns for your opponent? What if the OHKO move hits twice during those turns? Walls could become a liability if they lack Substitute.

On the subject of walls, stall teams would degrade by quite a bit. Since they rely on indirect damage to punch through teams, wouldn't it be bad if, say, you phazed their spinner in? If you aren't using a Giratina(-O) then what will you do? Will you switch your Giratina in to prevent a use of Rapid Spin, or would you phaze your opponent out in case they switched to Kyogre predicting that you'd go to your Giratina? Granted, this isn't new stuff, but if you get the prediction wrong and go to Giratina, then there's a 1/3 chance that it'll fall regardless of HP because of Sheer Cold. Fissure if it's not Giratina-O.

Of course, the third part hasn't been tested by me. I haven't faced stall with a real team since this testing happened. However, the first and second happened. Some people were too frightened by the move, and others were too cocky with the move. It sounds completely broken, right? Well, go on the ladder and see for yourself. So few people use it that it hardly matters. It's broken in theory, but it's different in practice. I see it as something that'll be used mostly by noobs or as a desperation move. Something tells me that this post has been floating around in terms of topic.

I've played against very few teams with OHKO moves, and i didn't lose a single battle against those ones. In my opinion, these moves aren't a big issue for a good offensive team, and i agree that it's most of the time a big disadvantage to waste a slot on a pokemon to use an OHKO move. But haxx already plays a very important role in competitive battling, and adding to that the possibility of winning battles by spamming these moves just means increasing the importance of haxx and ruining a little bit more the strategic side of the game. And as I said, these moves aren't a big issue for offensive teams, but they can be terrible for a defensive one. Allowing them could cause the disparition of stall in Uber, which is still an efficient and reliable style in the current metagame. For these two reasons, they should remain banned in my opinion.

Actually, despite most people dismissing OHKO moves as a hax-reliant gimmick, I've found great success in a team that combines SDef RestTalk Sheer Cold Kyogre with Def RestTalk Fissure Groudon, the defensive combination is trolly as hell, and with both of them holding the Wide Lens, their respective OHKO move's accuracy is increased to 40%, a very decent number considering what the move can do to teams. I think dismissing this strategy as nooby gimmicks is a little too forward, they can actually be pretty damn strong if used correctly.

Almost there with reqs, I'm well over 2000 but I need to lower my deviation about 10 more points.

Well, two things to report so far. First off, in a real team, I've found myself wishing Kyogre had Ice Beam over Sheer Cold, and generally associate it with dead weight. However, whenever I use it, the Kyogre isn't actually bad. Sheer Cold allowed it to get past things it normally couldn't (phazing Dialga, Chansey) in a turn or two and allowed other members of my team to get a sweep in. I've only used it a few times, but those uses of the move won me the match, or made sweeps easier and require less prediction. Chansey wasn't a counter to Kyogre, since it could just use Rest to shrug off status and damage. The time I used it against Dialga allowed me to get through something that would otherwise be frustrating with no effort at all, and allowed me to take down the team. It's also great against the opponent's final monster if it's bulky or sets up, since they can't switch out.

So my take on the metagame~~
While OHKO moves may be gimmicky, when they do make contact they are very deadly. I tried to alternate between two teams, one with ohko moves and one without. I often found the team without to be more reliable, but when I did get an ohko move to hit I was very grateful. Like Aqualouis has said, offensive teams really don't care about ohko moves, but it can spell the end for stall. For this reason I do think that it should remain banned.

I think it summarizes both sides of the argument pretty nicely: if someone is serious about using OHKO moves they need to build an entire team based on them, which is for the most part made of terrible/unviable pokemon in ubers.
On the other side, such teams can be successful with good prediction skills and a bit of luck, but 6-0's are very unlikely to happen.

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That replay is a terrible example. You don't have to build a team around OHKO mons to use them. In fact, the only thing I've noticed is that I've been replacing a phazing / attacking move on a wall / thing that gets multiple free turns and / or has high longevity. By doing such you now can threaten things with a OHKO and loose all your counters. All I did to make my team was take an old stall core, that conveniently happened to find the perfect role that Gliscor could fill while I was building it. Syrim took a team in need of a backbone and used Sp Def kyogre to fill that backbone. In that process he just threw Sheer Cold on it over Roar. Both of us didn't exactly "build" around an OHKO move user.

You can DEFINETLY build around a team spamming OHKO moves but don't expect yourself to get far unless you can get a ton of consistent luck wins. Keep in mind, all it takes is a single Sheer Cold miss for a [insert setup sweeper here, ex: Rayquaza] to set up a [insert setup move here, ex: Dragon Dance] and sweep. Thats a flaw that comes with teams using 6 mons with Sheer Cold, they lack a complete defensive backbone and as a result tend to succumb / suffer when their moves miss.

Your replay does however show a ton of hax. That is an argument against OHKO moves, do they disrupt the meta so much to the point where it becomes a dice roll? And to quote / paraphrase from Syrim.

to whoever said wide lens doesn't work on ohko moves, thank you, I feel really stupid now (lol new feeling for me >.>)

anyways uhhh yeah that's my reqs, this was a pretty fun test what with spamming ohko moves and such, I still think they're broken and don't require any skill to use (hence my reqs!) but I think they're not 100% game-breaking, they just don't deserve a place in Ubers!

After feeling my way through several crappy teams, I finally settled on a not-so-crappy one that just happened to have Sheer Cold Kyogre. I did not intend to build a team around it; it filled a niche that my team was lacking. I was surprised just how viable that set is. It got me out of several uncomfortable spots, but I found myself just playing it safe most of the time with Scald. I won't go as far to say stall is unviable in the least bit. It just forces those teams to play a game of Russian roulette while playing left-handed to take Kyogre out. Not that a full stall team was really that viable before. The defensive core+cleaners approach still works very well. Kyogre can easily break most Pokemon's subs, so subbing in its face isn't typically a good idea (though I dodged a bullet somehow after my opponent had a Sub-NP-Para-flinch Darkrai set up on it).

As for OHKO Clause, I am facing a dilemma. I'm leaning towards keeping OHKO moves banned, but let me play devil's advocate a bit . :P I don't feel that OHKO moves damage the metagame. Offensive teams are pretty much unaffected, but defensive teams now have a threatening tool in their toolbox in case of emergency, or just to discourage set-up moves. Sure OHKO moves can win games early on or in "unfair" situations, but so can a timely Thunder para, Spacial Rend crit, or Air Slash flinch chain. On the other hand, spamming OHKO moves at the start is a viable way to close that skill ga. One time my opp had a Scarf Sheer Cold Kyogre and landed 3 consecutive hits that decimated my team, and then another game with me spamming SC against Pocket, I think, that gave me an early advantage. It is an easily spammable move, but 90% of the time it doesn't win games on its own. It takes a certain skill to know when to use OHKO moves and when not to, which teams benefit from them and which don't. It just happens that they benefit balance teams the most. Most importantly, they do not break the game. They do not even break the metagame. If it ain't broke, then maybe we shoudn't consider fixing it. This is Ubers after all! In principle, this is the place to go when you want to use "broken" stuff. OHKO moves can add a fun new dynamic to some games. Luck IS a desirable part of the game. It is not the end of the world if someone beats a slightly better opponent every now and then. That's intentional. This game is about minimizing risks while being gutsy when the situation calls for it. This game is not chess, and the suspect testing process introduces a metagame bias. People need to be wary of confirmation bias. If you lose a few games where the opponent hits with OHKO moves, then it does not follow that that is the sole reason why you lost. They almost never (in the mathematical sense) win games on their own. OHKO moves have a chance to close a skill gap, not eliminate it entirely.

Devil's advocate end.

What matters most of all in competitive play is to make the better player win. What Game Freak intended is entirely irrelevant. OHKO moves are very viable, which introduces a large element of luck when both players are good. Smogon is all about seeing who is better than who, especially in tournaments. When players are nearly the same skill level, the game turns into a massive roll of the dice, which is not desirable. OHKO moves can severly tip the balance of skill vs luck. Made that great prediction early on? Too bad! Your Kyogre counter just got obliterated. Some sources of luck we cannot control, but we owe it to the serious competitive players out there to not get frustrated by moves that can with a roll of the dice practically guarantee a win. That is not fun.

I think the general consensus is that OHKO Moves in Ubers aren't stupidly broken, but still shouldn't exist in Ubers, and I agree here.

I mean, I've just recently got back into Ubers, and I do hate coming up against stupid OHKO-Spam teams. Some are well thought out, with synergy and whatnot, to which I give credit, but the majority is just plain old Spam, which is not something I want in Ubers, and I think many people who's favourite tier is Ubers will agree with me.

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little bit of a sloppy ending heh

anyways, i didnt see too many people using OHKO moves, but when they did use them it was usually as a last ditch way to stop one of my pokemon from sweeping their team. this can get definitely get annoying and i dont think theres a place for it even in ubers. basically just adds another element of luck to the game where the player is banking on something completely out of their control control to happen. granted, most of the time to use the OHKO move you have to trade something somewhat legitimate on X pokemon's moveset, but still. just my take on it.

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Finally got it.

Anyway, I decided to use a couple of teams for the round, one with an OHKO move and the other being a plain offense team. OHKO moves did on occasion get me out of situations that I would've otherwise lost, and sometimes lost me the game when I needed one to hit out of two/three. I'm basically echoing what pretty much everyone else has said, in the fact that the user of the OHKO move(s) is relying on luck to win, and I really don't think that we want a metagame like that.

Moderator

I'm super legendaire.
Laddering in Ubers was quite fun. I've got the whole package and I mean: ridiculously haxxing my way (ah those Espeed crit), and the shameful lose (Dragonite/Dusclops team was too strong to handle).

I did use a Sheer Cold bulky Kyogre for something like 45 battle and it was so gimmicky that at the end, I just used ScarfOgre. Sheer Cold was fun but not reliable enough to me, and I really doubt someone would use it in a tournaments. Even if I guess bulkyOgre would be interesting vs Defensive team, a style tournaments player likes.

So, as a lot of people already said: OHKO move are usually almost useless vs offense and sometimes useful vs stallish team. Is it worth unbanning or not at that point, this is every one of us decision.

Took me forever to hit the requirement for various reasons but yea. I didn't encounter too many people using hoko moves, ran into a few sheer cold kyogres and one fissure excadrill that hokoed my groudon once, but nothing much beides that. In my opinion hoko moves arent broken in the strictest sense, but they just bring more luck into the ubers metagame and I don't think we need that. We already have crits, damage rolls, and team match up to deal with it. Why add more luck in the form of hoko moves? I don't see any reason to unban them, doesn't benefit the metagame in any way. If you're using non-choiced kyogre on your team, there would be little reason to not run sheer cold. Switch into something kyogre threatens, know your opponent is going into their spd.def gira / latias / dialga / palkia etc? Just click sheer cold and hope for that luck chance.

Besides hoko moves, I've also found it interesting to see how popular Deo-s offense has become. Offense and Balance seems to be the main playstyles in ubers now, stall seems to have fallen off slightly.

A reminder that in the case of unbanning things you look for a lack of reasons to ban, rather than reasons to unban. If crits were (hypothetically) banned than one could similarly argue that there is no reason to unban them because they add more luck elements.

I've read the "End of Stall" arguments a few times while checking this thread and I feel that it is leaning towards a "banning by principle". Its specially shocking because some have said that Ubers is the place where Stall proliferates and that the format should remain that way as if Stall was "meant" to be the norm for Ubers. This stance is entirely opposite to the intention of a format like Ubers or OU where most strategies should be allowed, if Game Freaks made Stall unviable in their game, the format should reflect those limitations. It shouldn't be deformed to make the format "fair" for Stall users, as much as those represent a good chunk of the Ubers playbase.

The second part that seems iffy about that argument is that it comes from speculation, most players are calling the "death of stall", despite the fact that OHKO moves seem to be weak towards other game styles. In my opinion, this doesn't point towards the death of Stall, but simply a redefinition of which dominant playstyles are used in Ubers. The fact that it all comes from speculation is all the most depressing, because it's again, trying to ban OHKOs by principle. "They make the format unfun and they add randomness", all we know is that they might make the format different, and it's obvious they add randomness since they are attacks that might miss. I'd say that unbanning the moves and actually testing them for a while, even if they get banned eventually in a more reasonable stance when addressing speculation. If the moves are making an impact on the meta and are still being defeated by other strategies, they should be allowed simply because they shake the meta without breaking it.

Isn't suspect testing meant to be where we test these theories? From what I've understood, those such as Syrim and Poppy are speaking from experience and not just speculating.

Nobody is arguing that Stall should dominate Ubers, just that it shouldn't drop off the charts like it did in OU.

How Game Freak designs their games isn't how we are supposed to build our tiers and clauses.

Some people seem to be forgetting that Ubers is already a fun and fairly balanced metagame. It's the unbanning of these clauses that is being tested based on principle (and to encourage more play in the tier). It's lifting these clauses that risks ruining the metagame, not keeping them.

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Got reqs near the start of the round but I didn't feel like posting until now.

Bulky Sheer Cold Kyogre was fun and actually worked out well when it hit (which it did far less than 30% of the time, I'm sure), but Sheer Cold is definitely not a move to rely on. It's still ridiculous how easy Kyogre can kill some of its premier switch-ins 30% of the time. Slower teams that couldn't hurt Kyogre all that much had their fair share of trouble, and eventually had to eat Sheer Cold as they tried to stall it out or hurt it in vain, but offensive teams were off just fine. Still on the fence about this since it obviously makes playing Stall much more of a gamble, even if it isn't particularly common.

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Alright. I made it 10x as hard as it should have been. Apparently, I make stupid, STUPID decisions when distracted. But the OHKO meta was pretty fun; the ladder was an interesting change of pace. I especially loved it when my opponent had OHKO moves as well. It's exhilarating, like Russian roulette.

Nobody is arguing that Stall should dominate Ubers, just that it shouldn't drop off the charts like it did in OU.

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Given how OHKOs are unreliable against offense I don't think Stall will just disappear over them. Stall my as well be scarce in the ladder since people are trying to make the best out of those moves, but without the novelty value that they get on this whole test situation, offense could easily keep them at bay. It truly depends on how are you set to interpret the current results of the ladder and how players decide to approach it.

I've read the "End of Stall" arguments a few times while checking this thread and I feel that it is leaning towards a "banning by principle". Its specially shocking because some have said that Ubers is the place where Stall proliferates and that the format should remain that way as if Stall was "meant" to be the norm for Ubers. This stance is entirely opposite to the intention of a format like Ubers or OU where most strategies should be allowed, if Game Freaks made Stall unviable in their game, the format should reflect those limitations. It shouldn't be deformed to make the format "fair" for Stall users, as much as those represent a good chunk of the Ubers playbase.

The second part that seems iffy about that argument is that it comes from speculation, most players are calling the "death of stall", despite the fact that OHKO moves seem to be weak towards other game styles. In my opinion, this doesn't point towards the death of Stall, but simply a redefinition of which dominant playstyles are used in Ubers. The fact that it all comes from speculation is all the most depressing, because it's again, trying to ban OHKOs by principle. "They make the format unfun and they add randomness", all we know is that they might make the format different, and it's obvious they add randomness since they are attacks that might miss. I'd say that unbanning the moves and actually testing them for a while, even if they get banned eventually in a more reasonable stance when addressing speculation. If the moves are making an impact on the meta and are still being defeated by other strategies, they should be allowed simply because they shake the meta without breaking it.

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The only thing that gamefreak has officially designated in the last few years is the VGC metagame. Our tiers are completely independent of gamefreak, and so obviously "the format" is too. The existence of OHKO moves in the game, and gamefreak's intentions, have no place in deciding if they are fit for smogon's variant of competitive play, and this logic follows for every clause.

You also claim that a lot of the "death of stall" comes from speculation, when in fact my opinion, among others, comes from actual game testing and plays that were made against/by us, solely because of OHKO's prescense. We have been giving the moves a test, the sheer volume of battles that have taken place on the suspect ladder denies that claim.The fact that other playstyles may become dominant is obvious. The point you made in the second paragraph of this post and the latest post are similar, so i'll address them below.

Given how OHKOs are unreliable against offense I don't think Stall will just disappear over them. Stall my as well be scarce in the ladder since people are trying to make the best out of those moves, but without the novelty value that they get on this whole test situation, offense could easily keep them at bay. It truly depends on how are you set to interpret the current results of the ladder and how players decide to approach it.

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You are arguing that as offense becomes more popular because of its increased viability, OHKO moves will phase themselves out and stall will eventually rise again. This is a flawed argument in more than one sense. Mainly, it ignores the prescense of skilled, pragmatic players who will attempt to obtain the best match up against any team style, and any type of player, through team building. This on its own prevents the phasing out of a OHKO move capable of breaking through spinblockers, water resists, and balanced/defensive teams in general (all incredibly important things to counter/match up well against).

The next is assuming that OHKO moves are used simply as a novelty by many players. I've seen more than one well built fissure excadrill team, and I can assure you predicting against it is nearly impossible, and maintaining hazards if you are using anything but sun offense or heavy offense can be pretty difficult.

Lastly, you claim throughout that stall is assumed to be the "dominant" playstyle of ubers. No one has, or will, attempted to claim this. One of my favorite things about this tier, what has caused me to play it exclusively for years, is the incredible array of playstyles one can use with our limited pool of pokemon. Currently, nearly every possible playstyle has the resources to be used successfully, all forms of rain teams, balance, stall and offense, all types of sun teams, sand balance and stall, heavy offense, weatherless offense/stall, and the list goes on and on. A player attempting to win consistently, in the face of OHKO moves, faces a much more limited choice. It is not that we are biased towards defensive teams, it is that we enjoy the diversity that keeps this tier, with its static pool of pokemon, from becoming stagnant.

So, i've been reading the arguments of both sides. I'm not really much of an ubers player, but from what i see, one side states that OHKO moves introduce too much luck into the metagame, and the other states that OHKO moves are an ineffective strategy, even in the hands of restalk kyogre, arguably the best abuser that anyone here can think of.

If it's an ineffective strategy, and i have no doubt that it is, and it also introduces too much luck into the metagame, why not just... ban it? Yes yes it's not broken and all that, but to me the point of the clauses have never been about whether something's broken or not, but rather about creating a more enjoyable metagame, which is why they're optional. The only place they're not is on the ladder, which is really just a simplified way of saying that most people on the ladder would put on these clauses, so we might as well stick them on too.

Edit: Nightmare, what defines "out of hand"? Let's say there is an option, any time in the game, to just click a button and have a 10% chance to win, but a 90% chance to lose. It's not really out of hand-you can only lose 10% of the time. Only problem is, it would just rob good players of winning. And the example you gave is perfect-the metagame CAN adjust. I could run, say, restalk celebi with psychic, HP fire, and recover. Or restalk salamence. Or restalk Heracross/kyogre for darkrai. And i haven't even begun to talk about random lum berries.Forcing the metagame to adjust to them would be very stupid, but very possible.